HP Indigo Users Meet in Dallas

HP Indigo Users Meet in Dallas

More than 1,800 HP Indigo digital press owners and users recently gathered in Dallas for Dscoop5, the 2010 installment of the group’s annual conference. In addition to more than 100 educational sessions and five hands-on workshops, this year’s event included bus trips to local HP Indigo users’ plants for presentations and tours.

A number of in-plant managers attended Dscoop5, among them Jimmy Friend, director of Print & Mail Services at the University of North Texas.

“That is one great conference,” he enthused. “It’s got lots of good sessions.”

He learned more about how to market variable data, and was intrigued by a session on producing photo books with HP Indigo presses.

“It looks like the photo book market is a profitable scenario for anybody with a digital color device,” he noted.

Others apparently agreed, because sessions on the photo publishing sector and applications were moved to a larger room after the “Photo Market Emerges” panel drew a standing room only crowd that spilled out the door. Those who managed to squeeze in heard from three executives whose companies are expanding the market.

One of them, DME’s Mike Pannaggio shared how his company has gotten into event books and sports-related offerings. Using DirectSmile software, DME has partnered with colleges to offer memorabilia, such as a personalized print of the football stadium with the person’s name spelled out by a digitally generated representation of the school band. The company also is working with NASCAR stars, since its facility is across the street from the Daytona International Speedway in Florida.

Michael Duggal, owner of New York-based Duggal Visual Solutions, related how his company focuses on high-end applications such as limited run books for artists and professional photographers, as well as modeling cards for talent agencies. Books for a gallery show can go for as much as $3,000 a piece, he reported.

In his overview, Alon Bar-Shany, HP Indigo’s vice president and general manager, characterized the market more broadly as “photo-intensive” products. He said HP is forecasting 177 percent customer page growth in the photo publishing sector this year.

Bar-Shany noted that the company is targeting professional labs and photo finishers in offering digital printing as a replacement for silver-halide prints, which is where the new HP Indigo WS6000p press fits. For the typical HP Indigo user, he sees opportunities in short runs of cookbooks, catalogs, real estate listing books, event materials and self publishing of brand books, portfolios, children’s books and more. The new HP ElectroInk White for sheetfed models (introduced during the conference) has potential for photo publishing applications, Bar-Shany added.

Even as shops look to expand into new markets, many ad agency professionals still have a limited knowledge of the marketing capabilities digital printing affords, reported Bob Boucher, vice president and creative director of Cole Creative in Boston, in the “Pitching and Partnering with Agencies” session. That insight came from a focus group HP conducted with 20 ad agency professionals, which Boucher attended. Group members were enthusiastic about what they learned, he noted.

Ken Schmidt, former communications director for Harley-Davidson, gave an entertaining and thought-provoking keynote address. Schmidt asserted that when consumers make a logic-based, data-driven buying decision, they’ll buy at the lowest possible price. Harley’s answer was to “appeal to the heart and gut to get them to like us more than the people we compete against,” he revealed. He noted that Hog sales suffered when the company started emulating the rest of the industry.

Beyond the educational sessions, Dscoop5 attendees took part in hands-on workshops that addressed business and operational issues facing users of HP Indigo and Scitex wide-format printing equipment. They also could gain more product-specific information from a slate of special partner presentations and by visiting the event’s Solutions Showcase, where 90 partner vendors highlighted their products and services.

One of the highlights for UNT’s Jimmy Friend was a session on future HP technologies.

“These machines are going to be so robust and do so many things for us,” he observed. “It just amazes me.”

Among the other big moments of the conference was the naming of the 2010 Jack Glacken Award winner—Moe Farsheed, CEO and co-founder of MindFireInc. The “outstanding contributions to the Dscoop community” that Farsheed was recognized for included his involvement in the organization’s founding and ongoing service as a trusted advisor to the Dscoop Board of Directors.